Allowing position coaches to leave for promotions could help expand diversity

Summary of 2 articles · Updated Jan 21, 2013

After 10 years of aiding diversity hiring in coaching, the NFL's Rooney Rule needs a facelift. So how will this introduce more diversity into head-coaching hires? As one league source explained it, minority position coaches who have concerns about whethe… (more)r the playing field is truly level are routinely tempted to embrace the security of a contract extension, which in turn prevents these coaches from becoming a coordinator with any other team until that contract expires. Getting rid of that rule would put more up-and-coming position coaches in the pipeline for coordinator jobs, perhaps reversing the trend of churning former head coaches and former coordinators into coordinator positions. Now that the NFL has a 10-year collective bargaining agreement with its players and the officials' lockout is history, owners can use the 2013 offseason to start building for the future.